What's Up at the Boner

The Kolsch is fermenting away still. That begs the question of what is next for the Lonely Boner? After debating whether or not I should re-attempt the saison, try the Citra DIPA again, or do some style I've never attempted before, I figured it's best to stick to my roots and do something malty, dark and roasty:

Yup. Time to do the Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. I decided to bump it up to Foreign Export strength after reading a good deal about Stone's mythical Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout (Beer Advocate reviews here... unfortunately I've never gotten to taste it), considered going up to Imperial strength and finally doing my IRS, but decided that Foreign Export is a nice compromise.

I think the silkiness that the oats should provide will work nicely with the added chocolate. I want a beer with a good bit of body to it as well. Here's how I think it's going to look, as of right now:

8# Maris Otter 60.6%

1.5% flaked oats 11.4%

1# Carapils 7.6%

1# Caramel 10L 7.6%

.5# Carafa 1 3.8%

.5# Chocolate 3.8%

.25# roasted barley 1.9%

.13# black patent 1%

.33# sucrose

1 oz Galena @ 60 minute

Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale

8 oz cocoa powder @ flameout

4 oz cacao nibs in secondary

I might also add some vanilla bean because chocolate and vanilla will make it closer to milk chocolate. The sugar is just being added to boost the ABV a bit

The stats should look something like:

7.1% ABV

OG: 1.069

FG: 1.016

IBU: 47.9

40.2 SRM

Any input? Cheers!

Brew Day: Kolsch part eins

Today was a brew day that went swimmingly. Shockingly, everything seemed to go well. It was absolutely beautiful out and a perfect day for brewing.

Of course my first German beer is going to be introduced by a photograph making a brew kettle look as ominous as possible...

I had no issues with my mash tun, which was pretty awesome. Mashing was done at 148 degrees F for 1 hour, using 3.5 gallons of strike water (just Long Island tap water). Then I Vorlaufed and then lautered with 3 gallons of 185 degree F water. Mash pH was around 4.6 from my test strips.

Since I was only using 8# of grain, mashing out went quickly. The hot break took awhile to build up steam though...

In the meantime, the yeast starter was looking pretty healthy.

Blogger is only letting me upload a few pictures per post and since everything went easily today, I ended up taking a decent amount of pictures. So, stay tuned for the second and more substantial part of this post! Cheers!

Brew Day: Kolsch part zwei

When we last joined our brew-heroes, they were patiently waiting for the hot break, which should be coming up right about NOW!

You'll see later that the Hallertau hops were two different alpha acid contents, the reason being that I only ordered 1 oz from Midwest on accident and had to get the rest by Rebel Brewer since they get it out to you much faster.

Mmm, Hallertau hops...

I did a 60 minute boil with hop additions at 60 and 30 minutes, Irish moss and yeast nutrient at 15 minutes, super moss at 10 minutes, and then chilled to pitching temperature.

After the boil I was pretty spot on with nailing 5 gallons for the final batch, which I'm happy about.

And finally pitching the patiently waiting yeast. Go forth and feast, my yeast!

Damn, I'm weird.

So anyway, here's the technical crapola.

5 gallon batch

7# German pils

.5# German light Munich

.5# German light wheat

1 oz 3.8 alpha Hallertau at 60 minutes

1 oz 3.0 alpha Hallertau at 30 minutes

Wyeast 1001 - German Ale ~300 mL starter.

2 teaspoon yeast nutrient at 15 minutes

1 teaspoon Irish moss at 15 minutes

5 teaspoon Super Moss at 10 minutes

Single step infusion mash at 148 degree F

Fermenting at 60 degrees F.

So yeah, no drama today. Just got to sit and enjoy brewing this beer. Can't wait to try it. Cheers!

Kolsch Label

Hey y'all. This weekend I'll be brewing the Kolsch and since I had some downtime, I figured I'd make a label. Since its the summer seasonal, I thought I'd make it summer-y. Tell me what you think!